In stark contrast to the shrinking physical market, the futures trading on Tocom has experienced significant growth during the 1990s. Before showing you the bar charts, let me go through the general outline of the Tokyo Commodity Exchange.The Tocom is a non-profit membership organisation given the statutory powers by the Commodity Exchange Law of 1950, regulated by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. The Exchange lists precious metals, energy products, and industrial materials like aluminium and rubber. The Tocom has 120 General Members, 44 Associate Members and 68 Broker Members.In precious metals, gold, silver, platinum and palladium futures contracts are traded in Japanese yen for up to 11 months forward. Weight units are 1 kilo in 99.99 gold, 60 kilos in 99.99 silver, half a kilo in 99.9 platinum and 999.5 palladium. Trading is all screen based. The morning session lasts from 9 until 11am Tokyo time, and the afternoon session is from 12:30 till 3:30 pm. It is possible for you to follow the Tocom afternoon session from your office in Delhi or Mumbai.There has been a tremendous growth in trade volume on Tocom over the last 19 years. Last year, Tocom traded just over 20,000 mt of gold, which is about 85 mt per day, equivalent to Japanese annual imports in recent years.